


Training

by lizznotliz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:36:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizznotliz/pseuds/lizznotliz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They divide their time between the Resistance and her training. Leia doesn't understand why all of Rey's training can't be done on whatever backwater base they've moved to this month, but Luke is insistent that Rey needs to see things outside of a military base.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Training

Every time they leave, Leia's face goes hard like steel.

"We'll be back," Luke says. He curls his right hand against his leg, like he wants to reach out and assure her, but he's made of flint these days and they're liable to spark.

"We'll be back," Rey says, and the lines around Leia's eyes soften. She hugs the general because she can, looks over her shoulder at Luke while she does.

Family is complicated, Rey has learned. Not everything can be solved just by coming back.

 

 

They divide their time between the Resistance and her training. Leia doesn't understand why all of Rey's training can't be done on whatever backwater base they've moved to this month, but Luke is insistent that Rey needs to see things outside of a military base.

"You'd understand if you'd have let me train you," he starts one night in the middle of an argument, but the room suddenly goes cold, both siblings falling into silence, and Rey can tell this is an age-old point of contention. She wraps her arms around herself to ward off the chill.

The next morning, Leia walks them to the Falcon and lets them go.

Rey likes seeing other worlds, experiencing all the colors and elements that she never could have dreamed of living on Jakku: mountains and valleys, trees and rivers. She dances in the rain on one planet and she thinks her heart might burst. She likes piloting the Falcon, grateful that Chewie lets her have it when Luke drags her away for a few more weeks of training; flying feels intuitive in a way that the Force doesn't, sometimes, and even if she's left confused and frustrated by her lessons, she feels comfortable in the pilot's seat.

But every time she rises into the air, her throat closes up and the urge to run back to Jakku is staggering. _Your family is waiting for you,_ her bones whisper, and she pushes the Falcon harder, faster because - _no_ \- she went and found her family. There is nothing waiting for her back on Jakku anymore. 

Still, the urge to find home persists. With the Resistance moving bases every time they meet back up, with Jakku just a part of her past, she realizes that she doesn't have a home anymore.

"You have heavy feet for a pilot," Luke notes, in the middle of hyperspace. He doesn't look at her while he speaks, the both of them staring out at the blurred stars whizzing past. "Perhaps one day you'll find somewhere you want to leave your boots."

She found her family; she can find a home, too.

 

 

Luke takes her to Dagobah, once, in a zippy little two-seater he borrowed from the Resistance. It felt strange to leave without the Falcon but Chewie had promised to take care of it with a wink and growl. She understands when they set down in the middle of a swamp; the patch of earth they found to land on is far too small for the Corellian freighter and if they'd made it down, she never would have gotten back up.

They hike through the swamp for the better part of a day and Luke mutters to himself most of the way, embarrassed for having lost whatever it is they're trying to find. The air is damp and sticky and Rey is fascinated by the way it seems to sit in her lungs the way the desert air never did. They stop, finally, in front of a tiny hovel; it takes Rey a few seconds to actually see it underneath all the vines and moss that have grown up over it through the years. Luke fingers his lightsaber for a moment before pulling a small knife from his pack and cutting away the thickest foliage that's obscuring the door before crawling inside.

Rey follows.

They sit cross-legged on the floor, staining their knees green, and Luke sighs, his eyes slipping closed.

"This was the home of my Master," he says quietly. "History is important to the Jedi, since the Order's inception. In the old days, history was important because of the traditions that were passed down. Now, Jedi history is important so we can learn from our past mistakes."

"What do you want me to learn here?" Rey asks.

Luke shakes his head. "I'm here to learn. To remember a lesson I forgot: isolation does us no good."

 

 

Once, in the middle of an exercise that combines meditation and controlling the Force, Luke mentions that his master made him do something similar, but upside down. Rey opens one eye, still sitting perfectly balanced on the edge of the cliff, and Luke is happy to see that the rocks floating above her head don't tremble.

"Upside down?"

Luke nods: "A one-handed handstand. He even made me lift Artoo. I'd forgotten about that til just now."

Rey stares at him for a half a minute, just with one eye, and then nods decisively in a way that reminds Luke fiercely of his sister; for a moment, he's scared of what Rey is going to do. But the girl just moves, ever so slowly, and lifts herself up onto her hands, her fingers gripping the edge of the cliff.

"That wasn't a challenge," Luke says, but his tone is far from admonishing.

"I just wanted to see if I could."

Luke pauses for a moment, then: "Yoda also used to make me run around a swamp carrying him on my back."

Rey collapses against the ground, her laugh clear and loud and echoing through the canyon. The rocks around her fall, but carefully and strategically so she is unharmed. She lies against the stone, shaking with laughter, and Luke looks at her like she's a miracle.

 

 

When Luke thinks she's ready, he takes her to a quarry on Dantooine and teaches her about the crystals that can be found there, about the colors and their qualities, and how to make a lightsaber. He tells her it's time to make her own blade, and he slips his father's off her belt. 

Rey's blood hums like the first time she flew the Falcon as she picks through the quarry and finds crystals. Luke constantly praises her natural talent with the Force, but most days she still doesn't feel like she knows what she's doing. It's somehow both foreign and familiar and she's just waiting for the day when Luke notices and cuts off her training.

Building, though, that's something she can do. She spends an afternoon dismantling Anakin's lightsaber and then Luke's own, with his permission, carefully cataloging the parts and how they work in tandem. Luke watches, smiling into his shoulder when she huffs quietly over elements she finds extraneous. He tells her that this is unorthodox, the picking apart of another's lightsaber, that in the old days padawans simply had to learn on their own how to build their weapon.

"So why did you let me?" she asks.

"Because this isn't the old days anymore."

Each crystal produces its own blade color and she notes the differences between the crystals in Anakin's and Luke's. She's not sure she wants a blue blade: it makes her think of snow and rage and the smell of Finn's burning flesh. Luke's blade is green, and it suits him, but for Rey is reminds her of Takodana and job offers and her first frightening glimpse of the Force, whatever comfort she may find in it now. 

At the bottom of the quarry she finds a small crystal that's different than the rest and she wraps it in her calloused fingers and takes it back to their camp. Luke tells her to meditate with her crystal, to think about what kind of Jedi she wants to be and what kind of lightsaber she wants to have. She doesn't know what kind of Jedi she wants to be; she doesn't feel like she knows enough about the Force or even what being a Jedi means yet. But she knows who she is, proud in the skills she acquired over her years alone, and she knows she wants to protect and defend.

She molds metal with her mind, designing a hilt that's longer than normal, but Luke just watches silently and offers no comment. She finds a reflector coupling among the scraps Luke has provided for her construction; she considers how it might affect the blade and Luke nods encouragingly. 

"Build the weapon that is right for you," and that's all he says on the subject.

When Rey presents her finished saber to her Master, Luke smiles - genuinely and without restraint - holding the double-bladed weapon carefully.

"A yellow blade," he notes without judgment.

"Like the sands on Jakku," Rey says quietly. For all that Jakku was, it shaped her in ways she will never be able to explain. She was worn smooth by the sand there and she reminds him that he said history was important to Jedi.

"A yellow blade was rare among our Order," he says, sharing more history, "but they were customary for a special faction of Jedi called Sentinels. Sentinels recognized the limitations of the Force, recognized that the Order's isolation was a hindrance and they were not blinded by their faith. They were highly trained in combat but also prized skills outside of the Force, in things like security and technology. In retrospect, they were the best of us." Luke retracts the yellow blades and holds the hilt out to Rey; she accepts it and hooks it onto her belt. 

It feels like home.

"I think," Luke says, his voice sturdy and sure, "that the Sentinels would have been proud to have you among their number."

"And are you?" she asks. "Proud to have me?"

"Since the day you were born."


End file.
